MEPs call for environmental resource measurements

The European Parliament’s environment committee yesterday (25 April) called on the European Commission to come up with measurement indicators for four types of resource use: materials, land, water and carbon.

The Commission’s resource efficiency roadmap, presented in September, says that only resource productivity can be measured at present because not enough data is available in the other areas.

But environmental campaigners disagree. “Today’s vote sends a clear message to the European Commission that the political will to put Europe on a truly resource efficient path is there. Further delay in adopting the indicators would be a missed opportunity,” said Ariadna Rodrigo, resource use campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.

The MEPs’ report, which is non-binding, calls for the better implementation of waste legislation, more green public procurement, the phasing out of environmentally harmful subsidies, and a revision of the eco-design directive to improve the recyclability of products. It also calls for a gradual phasing out of landfill sites, with waste that can be incinerated or recycled banned from landfill sites by 2020.

A suggestion that the EU loosen rules around waste shipments to establish a “Schengen Area for waste”, proposed by Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy, a Dutch Liberal MEP, was not backed by the committee.